


falling / catch you

by ninata



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: (don't mind them.), (it's fine.), (they're just there at the end on a donut date.), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Established Relationship, Love Across The Universe: Dangan Salmon Team, M/M, Post-Game, Relationship Drama!, but all other plot stuff from the maingame is true., messy break-ups
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-27 18:27:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15690927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninata/pseuds/ninata
Summary: After a fight, Shuuichi and Kokichi talk about their feelings. For once.





	falling / catch you

**Author's Note:**

> "established relationship"...sort of...they're dating-not-dating...is that all i can write anymore??? i guess????
> 
> warnings for:  
> -implied child abuse/neglect  
> -explicit and implicit mentions of suicide/animal death  
> -implications of self harm  
> -very bad brain/going off medications  
> -general horniness  
> -mentions of cigarettes and drinking
> 
> this is going off an idea that's briefly explained in the beginning of "post salmon mode, the cast, upon leaving, discovers they had fictional personalities, and are rehabilitated and thrown back into the world as a weird mix of their pregame/ingame selves". it's weird but just roll with it, okay?

There’s a murmur that’s spread through the group of former classmates, those once trapped in a killing game they thought they didn’t want. Saved by a whim, a simple twist that no one had expected. Casually, the heads of the dominoes stacking themselves ever so courteously onto each other’s asses, a bunch of impossible coincidences that led them back to the outside world. A dating game, so cliché, it’s a wonder there was even a market for it. Winners. No losers. Let out. Reintroduction to society, rehabilitation. Rewritten personalities dialed back. Old personalities remembered. Memories mixing.

And now, this.

The murmur is as follows; “Saihara and Ouma broke up again.”

“Really? Again?”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Is it over something stupid like stolen pudding again?”

“No, it’s serious this time.”

“Ehhh—! You’re kidding!”

...Or so Shuuichi would like to think. The truth is, no one probably cares.

He sips moodily at his coffee, pretending for the millionth time that he’s a hardboiled noir detective in a dinky café in America, scalded by the burning hot passion of a no-good lover who doesn’t know when to quit. But maybe he’s the one who doesn’t know when to quit. In the two story Starbucks that sits on the far corner from Hachikomae, Shuuichi taps a nail against the film of his screen protector. Pressing the home button of his phone reveals that Kokichi _still_ hasn’t texted back. Being left on read is too cruel, even for him. Even for Kokichi.

Or, well. Kokichi couldn’t really be considered cruel. Besides the pranks, he’s quieted down. No matter how thick they laid on the complexity for a character, that all kind of dissolves once you remember you were just some suicidal nobody with a shit life. But maybe Shuuichi likes unfairly judging him and making a false equivalency. Maybe that’s the kind of reproachful sack of shit he is.

So they broke up. So what? They do it often enough, and they're not even really dating in the first place. Blow out fights aren’t the most common thing between them, but they’re bound to happen. If Shuuichi says something a little too scathing, that’s not his fault. If he got a little drunk and yelled at Kokichi that he wished he’d never have stuck a date ticket in his face and proclaimed they were going to see a movie in the AV room, that was definitely, certainly not the reason Kokichi stormed out in the middle of a downpour in his socks and didn’t even wake Shuuichi up when he came back to grab his medications off the nightstand.

Not his responsibility. Kokichi’s too sensitive. Kokichi’s too callous. Kokichi should get by now that Shuuichi causes his own problems when things settle down too much.

He wishes he could smoke in here.

“Saihara-chan.”

The voice comes out of the blue. High, nasal voice, emphasis on all the sweet spots on the name that leave his lips. Shuuichi’s chest sparks, fizzles, dying fireworks at a festival that hasn’t even started yet. It’s only June, after all. He whirls around, trying to gather a plan of action. Failing. If hearing him was enough to send him into disarray, seeing him only turns it into a crisis.

“Sooo, like. What’s the deal.”

“Wanted to see you.” Shuuichi fumbles.

“Wow, I’m so flattered! Just kidding. You broke up with me.”

 _“You_ broke up with _me.”_

“I don’t think it went like that.”

“It was mutual.”

“It wasn’t—“ Kokichi’s face twists ever-so-slightly. “We shouldn’t talk about this here.” So hard not to love that face. So hard for his chest not to burn every time its expression turns at his own, looking on him with disgust.

“Fine. Where.”

“Can we just go back home?” Kokichi crosses his arms. “We need to talk. Again.”

“Again?” Shuuichi frowns at his coffee.

“Evidently.” Kokichi turns on his heel, a soft scratch of his worn soles against the floor.

Not up for discussion. Shuuichi likes that terseness of his. They both changed a lot, huh.

Kokichi buys a chocolate chip scone from downstairs before they leave. Shuuichi waits for him outside of the line, admiring the nape of his neck. The hairs that didn’t make it into the short ponytail stuck to the back of his skull. His thumb flicks his index, conjuring up images of a sweat-slicked back, shoulder blades too prominent for his own good, Shuuichi’s hand tangled in that hair, skin lighting up in bursts of color wherever Shuuichi latched his disgusting mouth onto—

“Saihara-chan, let’s go.” Kokichi says, and that knowing smirk is enough to tell how transparent Shuuichi’s face is. He wipes his lips nervously.

They don’t hold hands on the way back. They don’t when they aren’t fighting, either, but Kokichi refuses to meet his eyes. Part of that is thrilling. Maybe he wrecked it for good this time. The other part is so anguished at the idea of losing him that he worries he’ll just puke up all that coffee in his stomach before they even get to the subway station.

Somehow, he survives it. He doesn’t even acknowledge the twists in his stomach every time Kokichi turns his head so as not to see him. That’s good, isn’t it? It’s good like this. It’s good to make things bad.

Or something? Maybe he shouldn’t go off his medication like this.

Crossing the threshold of the apartment they’ve shared for the past half a decade, Shuuichi tiptoes like a guilty housepet. There’s something in that drenched in an excited cold sweat, bursting to be hated and written off. Edging itself with the possibility of abandonment. He knows what it is, and he hates that _that_ part of him wins out so often over the meek little detective.

“Sit.” Kokichi says, gesturing at the couch. Shuuichi obeys, fidgeting with his sleeves. Kokichi sits down in a chair perpendicular from it.

“...So what the hell was last night.”

“You know…”

“No, I don’t. Why would you say that?” Silence. Kokichi sighs in exasperation. “‘I wish you never talked to me’? ‘I wish you gave up when you saw how small my dick is’? ‘I wish you didn’t have such low standards’?”

“...I don’t remember saying all that.”

“Of course you don’t! You were trashed! And frankly, that wasn’t all of it, either! You said I’d just, ‘fall for anyone who was nice to you’! Seriously?!”

Another silence. Shuuichi examines his knees.

“What does that mean? Can— Just explain, cuz I don’t get it. I don’t know if you’re just wanking off about how pathetic you think you are to get me to spoil you or if you’re genuinely trying to get rid of me, cuz I’m starting to think it’s the latter.”

Shuuichi chews the inside of his mouth.

“...Can you at least defend yourself?”

“I-I don’t know what to say…”

“I’ll take anything at this point! Make something up! Just kidding, I want the truth.”

“...I wanna light a cigarette…”

“You can smoke after you tell me if you hate me or not!”

“I don’t hate you.” That’s an immediate answer. Shuuichi almost curses himself for how fast he responds.

“Then what the fuck is it? Why do you keep doing this?”

“...I don’t do this _that_ often, do I?”

“You play this weird game.” Kokichi scoffs. “You’re all affectionate and ‘Ohhh, Kokichi-kun, you really understand me, let’s have sex all night’ and then you turn around and dump me over something stupid!”

“You dump me too…”

“That’s...not the point!” Kokichi grabs a free lock of his hair between his fingers, twisting it.

Shuuichi is caught between his warring selves again. Sure, he wants to be happy. But he doesn’t think he deserves that. He doesn’t think he deserves a good ending, to tell the person he’s in love with that he loves him even after knowing each other for so long. He doesn’t think that’s right for a person like him. Even his own mother can’t stand him. He’s a freak. A deviant.

“Look, if you want to break up with me, then do it. Break it off, hate me or forget I existed. Burn all our shit and keep my goddamn name out of your mouth, and don’t text me shit like ‘I miss you’ or ‘I want to see you’ while I’m at work. Kick me out of here. Dump all my stuff on the side of the road or whatever.

“If you can’t do that, then just...date me, okay? ‘You’ll get tired of me’? Don’t make me laugh. That’s my fucking line. I-I’m not— I care about you, okay, Shuuichi? I like...being around you, and talking with you, and...kissing and messing around and, and dirty stuff, okay? We’ve been living together for almost six years, now. I’m not trying to say you should just, get over yourself, cuz I can’t even do that. And I know how hard it gets. But, just— Stop. Breaking up with me. We both know you’re full of shit about it.”

He doesn’t like that Kokichi gets him this well. He loves it.

His expression must be telling again, because Kokichi’s voice softens.

“I’m...I’m not great, okay? I’m...not better than you. And it hurts when you act like it’s some kind of mistake that I want to be around you.”

“But it— it _is._ It feels like one.” Shuuichi stammers.

Kokichi stands up. He sits next to him.

“I...know we don’t talk about stuff often. I-I get it. I don’t wanna talk about it either, but...I feel so…like someone better than me should be with you. I don’t feel like a person like me should even try to make you happy.” Shuuichi swallows. Just a few sentences, and his mouth is dry. “It’s so much easier to just...keep moving forward without addressing anything. A-And it’s easier to keep things casual, and just fuck and kiss when we’re alone here and act like...I don’t know, like this is just…”

“Just...what?”

Shuuichi shakes his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think either of us know. And frankly, whatever we think we’re doing, it just...felt like it was smarter to not talk about it.”

Kokichi sighs. If he disagreed so strongly, maybe he shouldn’t have been so compliant with the whole “not really dating” thing.

“Are you mad?” Shuuichi asks gently, as if it wasn’t obvious.

“...Not really.” Kokichi says with a wrinkled nose. “I just want you to stop doing this shit and be normal.”

He's surprised, but he decides against expressing that. “That’s...asking a lot.”

“Is it?”

Shuuichi wipes his lips again.

“...You worry me.” Kokichi mutters.

“Thanks.”

“Just...We need to stop doing this.”

“This?” Shuuichi’s heart hiccups. “Like, us? Like this as in _this?”_

“As in you trying to ruin everything all the time.”

Relief. “Oh.”

“Like what—“ Kokichi frowns. “What do you even...You…”

Again, they both prove to be too stupid to handle this.

“Shuuichi, I don’t think you’re bad for me.” He tries again. “I don’t. You, uh...fuck, I like being around you. But I said that. I don’t...I wish you didn’t do all this ‘I’m worse’ bullshit, cuz I don’t think either of us actually believe that.”

“Well…”

“Seriously? You’ve seen me. Everyone hates me. I’m unpleasant. You’re one of the only people who still talks to me.”

“That’s because…” Shuuichi mulls that over.

“You can’t prove me wrong.” Kokichi kneads his hands. “That’s why I’m sad. You...mean a lot, and living together means a lot, and it...hurts when you try and...botch that.”

Shuuichi feels a pang of guilt.

“I’m sorry…”

“Don’t apologize when you’re not—“

“No. I am. I...I don’t want to drag you down with my bullshit.”

There’s an awful pause. For a moment, Shuuichi isn’t sure he can muster anything up to say.

He positions his palms on the words, shoving them out of himself.  

“I...I want to be…”

He swallows down a wad of anxiety caught in his throat. Another push.

“I...want to be the one who knows you best. Knows everything. I-I want that to be for me and me only. I want you… I-I want you! I want us, so, so bad. I don’t...I don’t know what to do anymore! I’ve never felt this way before about anyone! And that’s why I have to screw it up!”

Kokichi stares at him, stony-faced. It’s not a cruel face, just composed, and Shuuichi doesn’t need it to be. Makes him want to take a hammer to it. Crack it, pull away all that carefully crafted exterior until whatever pathetic bitch that’s under it all shows his face. He knows he’s in there.

“I h-hate it when things go right. It’s awful. I hate seeing you smile at other people, and I hate that I get so stupidly jealous! And you’re so, _so_ good for me, and I want to be good for you, more than _anything,_ but I just feel like a fuck up, because you were some prep school genius and I was some stupid pervert otaku with a fetish!”

“...Don’t say it like that. You know I was—“

“Of course I know what your parents were doing to you! And to be frank, I wish I could kill them for it! I just...I don’t know! You’re better than me, and I don’t even feel like you’re the problem! It’s _me!_ It’s _always_ me! It’s why my dad hanged himself and my mom doesn’t talk to me! And I just— I just—!”

Shuuichi gasps in exasperation, battling himself for the words. If he keeps going, he'll just freak himself out.

Kokichi’s head bumps against his chest. In an instant, Shuuichi’s shoulders slack, parts clicking and shifting to order themselves around him. The calm washes over, the anxiety rushes over it, give and take and perfect synonymous harmony, butterflies and pigeons and dead raccoons on the side of the freeway, so content to just rest all he has against that delicate frame and pray he doesn’t topple over.

“Mm. I think I get it. Shuuichi, if you ask really nicely, I’ll pat your head and tell you how much I— mph.”

Shuuichi stops him before he finishes, and those lips are his. Not in some possessive show, not right now, not because he wants blood and iron and every scar on his body to sing out his name or something hilariously edgy. But because they’re just like Shuuichi’s lips are Kokichi’s, and that he’ll always let go when he wants him to, and even in all that macabre bullshit, even when he’s at his worst, he just wants Kokichi to be happy, and want him back. He wants it because he needs it, some kind of confirmation he matters to someone without manipulation or coercion, just that he’s actually earned Kokichi Ouma’s attentions. That he’s not some Poe carting ‘round the disease everyone he loves is killed by, confused and wailing at the inhumanity of it all. Something. Anything. Everything.

Kokichi’s arm hooks low on Shuuichi’s hips, the other across his back, gentle grasp under and over onto the shoulder of his shirt. Couldn’t they get closer? Shuuichi curls his tongue around Kokichi’s, careful to tug him onto his lap, desperate for some kind of driftwood to hang onto in the current.

“Hey,” Kokichi breathes, violet eyes twinkling with the reflection of his own.

“I’m never going to leave you. Not for good. Not until you want me to.” He says in reply.

Shuuichi catches a tension in Kokichi’s expression at the words. He hates that. Neither deciding they want to pursue that line of thought, Kokichi tilts his chin.

A short, chaste kiss, but that’s enough to send Shuuichi reeling. He eases him back against the armrest, and it’s like nothing happened again.

Progress without progress. Invisible to anyone else. Maybe Shuuichi knows things changed, maybe he’s kidding himself.

But he wants it to have. He wants things to get better. He hasn’t thought like that since before middle school.

Their legs jumble, uncomfortably tight pants biting at the bends of Shuuichi’s knees as he puts all he has into Kokichi. Into his lips, his mouth, his lungs, trying to breathe everything he can’t say into him, that neither of them can say, that both of them get so close to but never quite put into words.

His hand slips over, but Kokichi makes a noise. He pulls back to let him speak.

“C-Can— Let’s, um, n-not, I just. I just want to. To hold you right now.” Kokichi’s flustered. “Is that okay?”

Shuuichi shifts himself, two hands cupping his cheeks, planting a kiss. He nods.

“Yeah.”

“It’s fine?”

“It’s fine.”

Shuuichi’s nose presses against Kokichi’s face. His skin is too unreasonably soft. Budget skin care really isn’t half bad, huh? He can make anything work, Kokichi.

“Um…”

“Mm?”

“Shuuichi, did...you mean that? About wanting to understand me?”

“...Yeah. I did.”

“You really, really meant it?”

“Mm.”

“Even though I’m annoying?”

“Mm.”

A short pause. “E-Even if I’m not as interesting as I look?”

“Yeah.”

“...Don’t just say that without hesitating…”

“But I mean it.”

As soon as he feels something wet where their skin meets, a huge, devastating wave of emotion floods him. He realizes again that he’s in love, and has been, and it may never go away. For once, that’s a little comforting.

The only thing he’s aware of his the intense desire to hold him. It’s all he can think about. To pull him close, to feel his chest fall and rise, to satisfy that nauseating rhythm his heart takes whenever he thinks of Kokichi.

“Kokichi-kun?”

He’s still teary. Shuuichi almost forgets what he wanted to say.

“I...really am sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“I don’t know if it is. But I’m gonna do better. I want to be better.”

Kokichi nods.

What will win? His desire to make himself miserable, or how much it means to him to be near him? The same things he's always done, or someone else finally starting to break that down?

He knows the answer, and while it scares him, it does feel...nice.

He holds him close, hoping it'll make everything right. It will with work.

He holds him, just like he wants to. This time, the happiness reigns victorious.

 

* * *

 

In a Krispy Kreme a few train stops away, Maki Harukawa checks her flip phone.

“He isn’t responding.” She grumbles.

“Probably makin’ up right now.” Kaito Momota says, already removing the tape from the box to dig around for a donut. “Smooch smooch ‘n shit.”

“I hope so…” Harukawa closes it, stowing it in her pocket. “I don’t like Ouma any better than the rest of us, but…”

“They make it work. Somehow.” He stuffs a cruller into his mouth.

“...You think he’ll tell him this time?” Harukawa brushes some of her bob out of her face.

“Mm? Whaf.”

“You know...his feelings?”

“Oh.” Momota swallows. “No way. Absolutely no way.”

Harukawa shakes her head, stifling a chuckle.

“...You’re probably right. He’s hopeless, after all.”

**Author's Note:**

> hope that...was good! i really love the pregame personalities, and i don't like ideas of post-canon that ignore the whole "you're not real people" thing, so i threw this au together and i'm about it. of course, it throws me straight into headcanon hell, and then i just write basically whatever i want and say "that's saihara and ouma", but the thing is is that i make sure it works for them...!!!! i hope it works. i like providing backstory that strengthens and agrees with the characterization kodaka gave.  
> ...or something.  
> well, that's enough of me.  
> i may be on a danganronpa break for a while after this, but who knows. i really appreciate all the kind comments and love i've gotten in this fandom, but sometimes...i deserve a break. (i get yelled at way too much in this fandom for the dumbest reasons...) if you really liked my writing, i'll be opening up an ouma fanzine for preorders before august ends-- look for that on twitter! (@/oumazine) i drew a comic for it that i scripted myself so. Heh  
> lastly, i think maki harukawa should always have the bisexual bob postgame. thank you.


End file.
